


Inside Our Dreams

by anonym_onous_free



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Injury, Not A Fix-It, Not Steve Critical, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Return From Titan, Wakanda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 22:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18536365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonym_onous_free/pseuds/anonym_onous_free
Summary: Tony’s subconscious dreams while facing oxygen loss and what Nebula faces as they return from Earth + maybe continuing to a potential endgame fic but it depends on my work ethic since endgame comes out in a week.





	Inside Our Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> We’ll see about if this will be more than a one shot since Endgame comes out in six days

The endless darkness surrounded the ship. It wasn’t peaceful, it wasn’t frightening. It was nothing and everything forever, existing together in a balance that couldn’t not be broken. Somewhere, the scale was tipping.

———————

Maybe the message was meant to be made. Tony didn’t know. He was beginning to learn that there was a lot he didn't know. He didn’t know when Peter became his son even though he wasn’t really his father. He didn’t know how much he loved Pepper until he recorded that message. He didn’t know that his last visit with Rhodey would be a fight over the stupid ancient cellphone. He definitely didn’t know how much he was going to wish he used the phone. He hadn’t needed to know that if he talked to Nebula, he would have to add a name to his list of favorite people. It had grown remarkably short after Siberia. 

Mostly he didn’t know that being stuck in space wasn’t what was going to kill him.

No. He was already dead in that sense. 

What he did know now was that being stuck in space hurt less than before. That fact might also be what made it burn so much more.

But he kept dreaming, delirious before and after the oxygen ran out. His inner conscience told him that he would be dead soon. He didn’t care. 

He wouldn’t be building a home in anyone’s dreams the way Pepper and Peter had barged into his. He wished he didn’t care so much, it would have made the pain so much easier. He wished they didn’t care so much; it had gotten Peter killed and probably was killing Pepper as well. She had lost him too many times, she didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. 

Maybe it was the lady in his dreams, the one covered in shadows with the glowing sapphire eyes. She built a home in his dreams too. Now his dreams were filled with sarcastic British butlers, a faintly Irish AI, and a blue glow. Rhodey’s home was there too; it had never been torn down after Afghanistan. Aunt Peggy and his mom, they lived in a modest Italian house. He could never work up the urge to go inside. 

His dreams were lighter. He didn’t know why. There were too many homes and too many people and he had no heart. Why did he have to care? Another woman walked in, she was all blue and mechanical and he knew her but he didn’t but he already cared and why?

There was the green alien with the antenna and she was yelling Sleep like she did on Titan. The creature named Drax and the half human Peter Number 2 and he barely knew them but they had already built a home and he couldn’t make it stop. The wizard, the wizard was standing next to Peter with a green light in his hands and he was gesturing at Tony but Tony’s dreams were always silent. 

Too many homes; too much noise. He didn’t want to hear them cry. 

Too bad they could hear him.

———————  
Nebula

Tony Stark was dying. She knew enough to say that for sure. He had been stabbed through his stomach and ribs and now was without oxygen. She had known him five days but then the longest she spent with someone other than Gamora was an hour. She already felt the urge to put an end to his misery, but knew that humans didn’t always appreciate that. This one was suffering, he was dying, but Nebula could tell he was already dead. It was easy to tell once you recognized it in yourself. 

It would easier for her if she left him, but it wouldn’t be long until her oxygen filter ran out and her battery died. She needed to find a port and Terra wasn’t far enough to be out of question. Perhaps she could repay the dead-but-not Tony and hand him to his friends. She was good enough at locating the buffoon of a space raccoons tracking implant. She just had to get the ship there. Fuel was running low, and autopilot wouldn’t work for long. 

Other planets would recognize her as a traitor. She wouldn’t be able to refuel until Earth. That meant they would be attempting two jumps on six liters of star fuel. Last chances were always the riskiest. 

Pinching her face into a distasteful expression, she pressed the throttle and guided the ship the to first jump point. They were already dying, but she would try to do this for Gamora.

———————

At the first jump point they had four liters left. She swore fluently in Xan. This could be worse, she coldly reminded herself. It really couldn’t, she was used to lying.

She never admitted that she couldn’t lie to herself.

———————

The second jump point was six minutes and thirty seven seconds away. They had two liters left. 

She didn’t even bother looking at the distance to Terra. After the next jump point it would be another 45 minutes. 

———————

The second jump point made her stomach queasy and her arm spark. She could feel her metal arm failing. Stark groaned. He was sleeping in the uneasy way of an oxygen deficient human. To little she knew about his kind, but even she understood that his time was ticking. 

The jump point had torn loose the wraps she placed on his wound. The binding agent he had designed was holding, but the jump weakened it. Blood that before had been deterred by the glue was leaking through; it would not be much longer before the agent would be dissolved. He would bleed to death before they got to earth, or he would suffocate. She did not know which was worse for him.

Why did it always seem to be darkest before dawn?

———————  
Tony

He could see so many faces. And it was so cold. 

Why was his chest hurting? Why did it have to be so painful to live? He remembered Siberia’s chill. Was he so unworthy of friends? It seemed to him the cost of his life was betrayal and pain. 

He had paid for his crimes, but not enough to them. The angry faces; they took and took. 

There people in his dreams all had homes there, the angry faces did not. It seemed fair. But who did the homes belong to? He sees a strawberry blond —-does he love her? And the kid, or the black skinned man. He knows them. 

He can’t remember. That might be what hurts most.

———————  
Nebula

Stark moaned and twisted on his side. His restless dreaming state worried her, not that she would ever admit it. They were entering the 25 minute mark to Terra. 

It was cut too close for her comfort.

———————

Tony groaned, but he was beginning to recover from his oxygen deprived state. They had entered Earth’s atmosphere on 0.2 liters of fuel left. Now they had to find a place to land. 

———————  
Tony

His vision was blurry. A voice was speaking, he thought he knew who. Maybe it was the blue lady, she was a comfort in the cold metal spacecraft. 

———————  
Nebula

The human was bleeding out, he would die if they didn’t land. Fuel was running low, they had seven Terran units of steady flying before the craft would turn to the emergency generator. She had read the label stating exactly how long the generator would keep the engine running. She cursed. Stark shifted.

It was easy to ignore the familiar cursive the note was written in.

It was harder to forget that her sister was gone.

———————  
Tony

He kept seeing the homes and the faces and the blue lady and he couldn’t feel a thing. 

His crown had fallen off his head and his throne was shattered.

He didn’t want them to see his broken life.

He didn’t know who ‘them’ was.

———————  
Nebula

The coordinate on the stupid space fox had led to a continent that was golden brown on the ship’s radar. His tracker said he was alive. It was their only hope, not that she felt any.

She shook her head and pressed the autopilot on the ship. Maybe it would make it to the country where the fox was located. The ship would probably falter and fail in the middle of the ocean they were above right now. 

She didn’t bother telling Stark that it was most likely over. He was unresponsive, he didn’t need more reason to die.

———————  
Tony

He felt metal hands touch his torso, dress his wound. He remained silent and dreaming. Maybe he would wake up, but his eyelids were so heavy and the warm blue light that filled his dreams was so nice. A woman’s voice urged his to remain conscious. Another voice belonging to the light told him to come closer. He didn’t remember why he stayed away from the light. 

It seemed like the right thing to do.

———————  
Nebula

The ship stuttered. They made it across the ocean, but were above a forest. The emergency generator turned on, the whirring discomforting. Twenty minutes away from Wakanda. It’s unfamiliar name felt wrong on her tongue. She had seen so many cities, so many worlds and countries and places. Why was Wakanda so different? But she could tell it was special, somehow. Probably the faint blue silver silhouette of a cloak over the horizon. Maybe Terra’s technology was not that primitive. 

Time passed quickly. Stark was fading, so was the sun. Almost eight days since the battle on Titan. 

She couldn’t remember the last time she slept.

———————  
They entered country of Wakanda as the sun finally set. A voice crackled through the intercom. 

“This is Wakandan airspace. State your purpose and name.” The voice held grief. It held the same accent as Stark, and didn’t he come from New York? Maybe Terrans all sounded the same. There was a pause before the voice continued. “Or we’ll blast you out of the sky.”

She ignored the threat. “What happened here?”

“Miss...”

A pause. In the background she could hear other voices. “Prove you’re a friendly and we’ll let you land.”

“Is there a space fox there?” She asked curtly. If the idiot creature wasn’t there then she would land and leave. 

“Yes, uh, Rocket? Wait a minute…” the voice was hesitant. 

“What do you want.” That was the raccoon. “Hey, wait a second, that’s my ship you’re flying!” 

She could hear the com unit being muffled. “That’s my ship, let them in you idiots, let them in!” He was excited, though she knew that would be gone soon. After she told him who was left. 

“Is that you, Nebula?” 

It was no use hiding her purpose now. She would kill Stark if she waited longer. 

“Yes.” She answered curtly. “I have a wounded Terran with me, his mechanical suit is nonfunctioning. He said he was Stark before he passed out.”

“Tony?” A new voice. “Is he responsive?”

“No, we ran out of oxygen coming back, he is in a unconscious state. He was also impaled.”

“Did you say he was impaled?” A jumble of voices spoke now, the com was obvious on speaker. Somebody shouted to prepare an OR and open the medical ward. She heard someone issue a command to the server and a section of the shield went down. 

The spacecraft failed just as Nebula cleared the barrier. She knew it had closed up behind her, but she didn’t care. She was trying to hard to brace the ship and Stark for landing.

Through the window she could see people rushing out on a transporter. If it was strong enough, they would be able to stop the ship’s plummet. And slowly but surely, the spacecraft slowed to a float and then landed gently on the ground. 

Nebula hit the button that opened the doors and risked a glance at Stark. His face was an ashy gray, his eyelids closed in a grimace. He was dying. 

Four people entered the spaceship, the first one a black man with two leg braces. The second was a sturdy woman who carried a spear and a commanding aura. On her wrists were two bracelets, and in her palm lay a bead that looked like a stabiliser. Terra had advanced to a competent level, it seemed. 

The last two were a man and a woman. The woman had short blond hair and a blank face, but Nebula knew enough to read hers. She was worried, and ashamed. About Stark. The other man was tall with coppery brown hair and a beard. He was dressed in an outfit with one star and several stripes. Perhaps these two were the friends but never truly that Stark had mumbled about when he was fixing her arm. 

“Who are you?” The blonde asked, looking from her to Stark.

Nebula didn’t answer, just moved between them and the man she had begun to trust. The not-friends would not touch Stark, only people who cared should. Like her, or the black man who was clenching back tears as he reached out to Stark. 

“Tony?” He whispered. 

“You are Rhodey.” It wasn’t a question. He flinched and looked at her, she stared back.

“You can take care of him.” A pause. “He spoke of you. He spoke of you and Pepper and—-“ She has to tell him. “The spider, Peter.”

The man—Rhodey—turned to her fully, fear more evident in his eyes. “What happened to Pete?”

“He…” she hesitated, “the dust.” Her voice lowered. She didn’t know, but it was harsh all the same. She had learned it was better to be soft with these emotions, however foreign they seemed.

Nothing else needed to be said. 

“You knew him, too.” 

He choked out a few tears. Of course he knew him, he was Tony’s best friend. 

“Who was Peter?”  
The tall man spoke, confusion and worry but it seemed less, like it wasn’t what it should be.

“You didn’t know Stark, then.” Nebula’s dark eyes absorbed their appearance. “But he spoke of backstabbers and betrayers as well as friends; perhaps you are them.” The man and blonde woman flinched. 

The proud general watched this from Stark’s side. She had placed the komoye bead on his wound but his vitals were fleeting. 

“We must hurry and get him to a full stabiliser. These beads will not do much for long. You can disagree about Stark later, just remember that the man is respected even here in Wakanda.” She spoke. “My name is Okoye. We must get you medical attention as well. ”

“Him first. I can walk and he repaired my arm. My injuries are not as great.” The Wakandan woman searched her eyes before nodding. “I am Nebula.”

“Welcome to Earth, Nebula.”

 

——————————————————————

 

Where do people go to when they die?  
Somewhere down below or in the sky?  
‘I can’t be sure,’ said Grandad, ‘but it seems  
They simply set up home inside our dreams

Inside our Dreams  
By Jeanne Willis


End file.
